Viet Nam Quang Phuc Hoi

The Việt Nam Quang Phục Hội, sometimes known simply as Quang Phuc Hoi (Vietnamese:"Vietnam Restoration League") was a nationalist republican militant revolutionary organization of Vietnam that was active in the 1910s, under the leadership of Phan Boi Chau and Prince Cuong De. Formed in March 1912, its objective was to overthrow French colonial rule in Vietnam and establish a democratic republic. The organization failed to achieve any notable successes in its attacks and failed to gain momentum, while at the same time it was crippled by arrests of its members.

The formation of the Quang Phuc Hoi came after a meeting in March 1912 in the southern Chinese city of Canton. The meeting brought together the remnants of the Duy Tan Hoi ("Reformation Society") which had been the leading revolutionary organization since the start of the century and had a monarchist bent but had lost direction. The new organization was patterned after the Chiense republican Tung Meng Hui. The stated aim of the new organization was to "drive out the French bandits, restore Vietnam, establish a democratic republic".Marr, p. 216.]

There had been some argument as to whether a democratic republican model or a monarchy should be the objective. Chau cited the arguments of Rousseau in advocating a republic, asserting that democracy was becoming a stronger force in China, especially among those in China that could offer assistance to Vietnamese nationalists. Chau gained support from most of his colleagues from northern and central Vietnam, including Nguyen Thuong Hien. On the other hand, the southerners, who tended to be more conservative and supportive of Prince Cuong De, a direct descendant of Emperor Gia Long, founder of the Nguyen Dynasty, were more inclined towards a return of the monarchy.

As it was, according to Chau's account, a majority of the participants agreed to abandon a monarchist ideal and they agreed to make Cuong De the President of the newly formed group.Marr, p. 217.] Chau was named as the vice president of the organization, while a ministry was created, with a delegate from each of Vietnam's three regions in each ministry. The most important of these was the "deliberative ministry", with Nguyen Thuong Hien, Chau and Nguyen Than Hien representing the northern, central and southern regions respectively.

The various military, financial and propaganda tasks were allocated, and the group dispersed and some members went back to Vietnam while others lurked in the border provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi along the Chinese border with Vietnam. In the meantime, Chau spent most of his time in fundraising. This was an urgent matter, since his usual financial advisor, Ly Tue, had been jailed in Vietnam and the source of funds from Vietnam was beginning to dwindle.

The Quang Phuc Hoi came up with a proposed flag design. Previously, Vietnam never had a flag, only banners to represent royalty. Their flag consisted of five red five-pointed stars, on a yellow background, which symbolised the yellow race. The military flag had a red background with five white stars, which represented the three regions of Vietnam, along with Laos and Cambodia. The red background on the military flag represented fire which represented their location to the south of China, and the white represented the metal of their weapons, implying the destruction of the enemy.Marr, p. 218.] Plans were made for the creation of a Restoration Army ("Quang Phuc Quan") to be led by students who had been trained in China. Chau, along with Hoang Trong Mau also created a training manual on military strategy for their army, that included information on ideology, disciplinary procedure, ranks and pay rates. However, these plans were never put in place as the army never materialised.Marr, p. 219.]

In April, Chau travelled to Nanking and sought an audience with Chiense President Sun Yat-sen in an attempt to get help from his ideological counterpart. However, Sun was busy with his newly formed republic and could only meet Chau for a few minutes before delegating the matter to an associate, Huang Hsing. Huang was in principle happy to support Chau on principle but released that the new Chinese government was in no position to give substantial help. Huang recommended that Chau send Vietnamese students to study in China for a decade or so to build up the strength of his movement, but Chau had experienced the same thing in Japan before and was dispirited by it. In the meantime he agreed with the education scheme and began to arrange for students to come to China to study at the military academies.

The Quang Phuc Hoi never gained strong position within Vietnam in terms of changing the culture among the nationalist revolutionaries, but its new ideas did in the long run come to be adopted by later independence movements. Mau wrote a proclamation for distribution in Vietnam, which elaborated on their views. The Quang Phuc Hoi strongly laid the blame for the colonisation of the country at the feet of the Nguyen Dynasty. The piece clearly proclaimed that the Vietnamese people as a whole were the inheritors, and owners of the country, not a given royal family, and said that if Vietnam was to be restored to independence, it was to be through the efforts of the whole of Vietnamese society. Thus they declared that a democratic republic was necessary, the first time that the term was used in Vietnamese.

Chau decided to raise funds by having large numbers of Quang Phuc Hoi "military bonds" printed in Hong Kong for sale in Vietnam and the Chinese border provinces. The Quang Phuc Hoi promised to reimburse the investors within two years, assuring the purchasers that they would come to power.

They also formed an organisation called the Chan Hoa Hung A Hoi, meaning Invigorate China, Revive Asia Society, which was a friendship society designed to drum up support for the Quang Phuc Hoi. Chau rented a large headquarters in Canton and went about promoting the organisation and predicting that the revolutionaries would soon be experiencing success in Vietnam. Then he wrote a proclamation and distributed it, depicting China as the model for all of Asia and hailing a new strategy to expel European authorities from various countries, starting with Vietnam, then Burma and India, which were under British rule.Marr, p. 220.]

During the first month, around two hundred Chinese people joined the organisation and substantial money was made from the bond sales. The Quang Phuc Hoi then changed some of the leadership positions to allow the Chinese to take part. The provincial Chinese governor of the area was aware of what was happening and allowed it to happen, since he was a sympathiser.

Chau knew that his financial ruse to get money would not be sustainable for a long time and that he would need results to sustain the momentum of the financial and political aid from his Chiense supporters. So he made plans for attacks inside Vietnam. With only a token organisation within Vietnam, they were initially only able to engage in shows of rhetoric, having passed death sentences on the Governor General of French Indochina Albert Sarraut and on the collaborator mandarin Hoang Cao Khai, known for his hand in the demise of the leading Can Vuong revolutionary leader Phan Dinh Phung. Chau then sent small teams into the three regions of Vietnam on assassination missions, attempting to perpetrate killings like that of the Japanese colonial official Ito Hirobumi by Korean nationalists. The first plot to kill Sarraut in November 1912 failed, and then on April 13, 1913, they managed to kill Nguyen Duy Han, the governor of Thai Binh Province. Two weeks later, they managed to blow up two French colonels at the Hotel Hanoi.

However, any publicity and momentum caused by the attacks were outweighed by the French response. The authorities rounded up 254 people, of whom seven were executed and another 54 imprisoned. These severely hindered the apparatus of the organisation inside Vietnam were decimated. The French also responded by putting pressure on China to clamp down on the activities of the Quang Phuc Hoi inside Chinese territory. By this time, the bonds were no longer generating much revenue, and the Chinese support and interest was beginning to dwindle.Marr, p. 221.]

Early in 1913, Chau held a meeting with around one hundred activists, and it was decided that Chau and Mai Lao Bang would stay in Canton to try to revive interest and support among the Chinese. Another group was sent to Hong Kong to build an explosives factory, while others continued to travel back into Vietnamese to attempt assassinations and bombings. The result was that the Quang Phuc Hoi was basically eliminated. The Hong Kong branch led by Nguyen Than Hien were captured by the British police, while other teams along the Chinese border and in Siam were captured and turned over to the French.

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Reference

*cite book|title=Vietnamese anticolonialism, 1885–1925| first= David G. |last=Marr |year=1970 |publisher=University of California |location=Berkeley| isbn=0-520-01813-3